


You deserve a chance

by attwnone (orphan_account)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:39:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7591381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/attwnone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's useless. Until, one day, he's not. </p><p>Spoilers for chp 833.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You deserve a chance

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this [post](http://lockdaisy.tumblr.com/post/147894195683/sanjis-devotion-to-zeff-a-brief-analysis-after) on tumblr, thought “what if zeff died, how messed up would that be lol,” and wrote my first ever fic about that thought.
> 
> I do not own One Piece. Title taken from the song _That Would Be Enough_ from Hamilton.

He ran. He ran step after step until his foot landed on stable ground, until he boarded a ship, until he was far away from them. There were moments when he never imagined he would get here and that the next step would be his last. One more step and he would be recognized and taken back. One more step and he would collapse because he was too weak. One more step and they would be proven right.  So he took another step and went beyond any of their expectations. He found stable ground, and more importantly, he found something to do. He helped in the kitchen. He was useful.

This was enough. He didn’t have to train day in day out, and he could help feed people. He could even ask about All Blue. Sure the other cooks laughed at him and it stung, but it didn’t hurt as much as a beating did. This was more than enough, and it would have been enough if the pirates hadn’t boarded the ship. His ticket out, his salvation, and these pirates thought they were going to take it from him? No, they wouldn’t.

When the fighting was over and he was on the rock, when his carefully rationed food became a single piece of moldy bread that dropped from his hand into the sea, he fell back to the time in the cage and counted the seconds, his heartbeats, his breath. In the past, he had counted the bars, walking back and forth, to reassure himself with their touch that there was something else besides this complete darkness. (Count and eventually the numbers will have to end. Count and eventually your father will have to let you out of the cage.) On the rock with half (half!) a day of sunlight, he had more options. The grass and the rocks, the waves and the clouds, the sunsets and the sunrises, and even when darkness reclaimed the land, the stars and the spots on the moon kept him company as he counted.

He continued to count until a single heartbeat was the length of complete sunrises and sunsets, until the stars had been accounted and numbered, until the emptiness between the stars was nothing compared to the one in his stomach. He counted until he realized that he had failed to count all the humans on this rock. He needed to see to accurately complete the count. So with a goal in mind, he lifted his withered body and counted the number of footsteps across the island.

This count had a definite ending point, and it lead him to a bag of gold and a missing foot. With such damning evidence, the numbers stopped. The time for counting was over. It was now time to read, to read between the lines and gather all the clues to discover the implications of the actions before him.

The implications were loud and full, heavy on a body that couldn’t even hold his own frame let alone this.

(The truths constructed under the weight of your father’s words and your brothers’ hits and your sister’s laughter had a voice that could finally say _they were not right_. A voice that took all the arguments of your family - you’re only worth something if you’re useful, you’re only worth saving if you’ve done something worth saving - and disagreed. In the face of all their reasoning, it simply replied yes, I gave you all the food; yes, I can’t be a pirate anymore; yes, I saved you even after you tried to kill me. A voice that saved you for your dream, their dream, a dream no one had ever acknowledge even less believed in it like you.)

It was too much. He cried and it felt like this was the moment he had been counting to his entire life because _they weren’t right they weren’t right they weren’t right._ His legs buckled under the weight, and he didn’t exactly understand the full magnitude of how exactly they were wrong but they weren’t right and his chest filled with an emotion he didn’t even have a word for, not yet, not for this amount of gratitude and thanks. It was too much.

Silence reigned over the rock. In this silence was a peace he had never experienced. The weight was heavy, but comforting, in the presence of the man right next to him. He crawled over, grabbed the man’s hand, and started to count the heartbeats. A steady, constant proof of all he learned today. Ba-dump they weren’t right ba-dump you’re not alone ba-dump kindness isn’t weak ba-dump all blue is waiting ba-dump ba...

It happened in the dawn. It happened in the moment when the darkness  lost and the light  won and new beginnings really could happen now (couldn’t they?). It happened in the dawn when the man drew his last breath.

Feeling the last heartbeat end in silence, he grabbed one of the man’s hand between his own and gripped the flesh until there was ten crescent moons carved into it. Why didn’t this man just play the game? If this man hadn’t given to something so useless, he would have been alive. If he had follow the rules of the game, this man would have never needed to cut his own foot, would have never gone hungry, would have never helped him. With that, all of his anger disappeared.

A rush of calm took its place as he realized the real truth. They were right after all. He was useless. Well, no that wasn’t quite right anymore. He wasn’t useless. He was beyond that. He had tried to escape to prove them wrong, but he did the complete opposite. He had taken and taken and taken until he had taken too much.

Now this man was dead, and he would never find All Blue. As he stared out to the sea, he realized maybe the man could still find it. All Blue was a combination of all the seas so surely it most also be connected to them. If he could only be a part of the sea, then the man could also become a part of the greatest sea of them all.

He got up and slowly, inch by inch, dragged the man closer to the edge. As he sat the man up, to give him one last shove on the back, he paused. Why not go together? It’s not like he had any purpose left on this rock, not like he had any purpose to even begin with. The least he could do for this man, this man he took everything from, was see him to the end of his journey. He could finally be of some use. Stepping in between the man’s leg, with his back facing the sea, he took one of the man’s hand into each of his own. When he fell, the man’s body, light as it now was, would be enough to drag him underneath the water.

Hopefully their bones would one day reach All Blue. That would be enough. It would have to be enough.

He counted. Three, two, one…


End file.
